Le Domaine de Beaulieu

Beautiful hotel and exceptional restaurant

Excellent food, beautiful surroundings

Lift was out of order

swimming pool, sauna, restaurant food/wine

Have stayed at the hotel previously. The location and ambience were as expected.

During our three day stay (a birthday weekend) - night one - 3 dogs barking in a nearby room loud enough to be heard in reception (while their owners were obviously not in the room) - if I wanted to be disturbed in this way, I would have stayed near a kennel! Night three - my wife's dinner order, at the Bistrot, was messed up - completely wrong course served, mine was served and not held while hers was replaced so I ended up eating separately. When hers was replaced, it was obviously hurried in the cooking and to be honest - not very well cooked (the replacement duck breast was like rubber). Just finished our main course when 3 or 4 young children (from guests dining inside) started running about between the dining tables without any parental control or intervention from the staff. Without being unpleasant - we raised these issues at reception and were not given any sort of indication that our comments were being taken seriously. When we checked out we were given a bag of sweets (obviously taken from the hotel shop) as a "compensation" - seriously!! - a box of marshmallows and a couple of lollipops - c'mon guys, for the sort of bill we paid, that wasn't a gesture, that was a brush off!! This is not being finicky - we stayed here for our anniversary last year and everything was perfect - hence our return, but sadly, there was quite a shortfall between expectation and actuality this time. I doubt anyone in senior management will be bothered to read this - or even take on board these genuine observations but; Whist the hotel is quite special - the quality of service was sadly lacking this time. Would we return - we would have to take a lot of soul searching to return - or indeed, to continue recommending to friends as we have done.